Good grief

This has been a hectic, wacky week.

Monday I did a vigil for hospice and got home about six to a totally messed up house and three kids who hadn't done their homework but who had eaten everything which was not covered with fur or marked "poison". On the way home, I stopped for chicken, and the young lady working the drive-thru opened the window and asked me, "Is it okay to have extra crispy breasts?" I couldn't answer that.

Tuesday I had to visit the facility where we are having graduation, then run out for dog food, then come home to cook supper, then take Rocky to boy scouts, then exercise, then run to the grocery store, then go back to pick Rocky up from scouts.

Wednesday, I decided to put macaroni and cheese in the crockpot, which would have worked out great except EG plugged in the toaster and not the crockpot. So I blithely attend a faculty meeting, run to get bread, go pick up one kid from choir, one from aftercare, and one from the principal's office, where she was summoned. Then we come home, where I find uncooked macaroni and cheese, which I prayerfully shove into a 450 degree oven. Then I go through backpacks, and find and sign a slip which was filled out on Rocky because he was using another kid's lunch to build cities on the cafeteria table. His reasoning: L said it was okay. Feed the kids, grab the rabbit, drop Kiki off at the library in the bigger city to wait for her girl scout meeting, and drive the rabbit and two younger kids to the library in our township for a Sit, Stay, Read program. The two younger kids, who know better, act as if they had been raised by wolves and go wild in the library. Nita decides she is going to backtalk me when I mention this to her when we are leaving, so I lean into the back of the van to grab her. She nimbly hops into the hatch, where she presses herself against the back window and screams hysterically, banging on the glass, and causing all the spectators at the ball game in the recreation complex adjoining the library to spectate me instead of the players. When we get home, she jumps from the car and runs away up the driveway.

I do not follow. In fact, I secretly wish she had done this at the library, where I could have driven off. Ooops. Silly me--so forgetful now that I'm nearing menopause.

Eventually, she returns, and I inform her through clenched teeth and with bugging eyes that it is time for bed. She evaluates her options and wisely goes. Leaving her with her dad, I go get Kiki from the library.

So when Kiki, who is sitting in the living room where there are three clocks, just asked me what time it was, I wasn't surprised. I simply said, "The same time it is in there."